The British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) is directing public school educators to incorporate LGBTQ+ perspectives into outdoor education programs, including lessons for children as young as four years old.
New Guidelines Challenge Traditional Views of Nature
According to materials published in the BCTF's official Teacher magazine, educators are being encouraged to question what the union calls colonial myths about heterosexuality in nature. The article titled Queering Outdoor Education invites approximately 50,000 public school teachers across the province to use natural elements like leaves, seeds, and clouds to challenge traditional gender and sexuality narratives.
The curriculum materials, authored by Vancouver teacher Jody Polukoshko, suggest that teachers should consider the harm of essentializing and naturalizing heteronormativity when teaching children about nature. The guidelines propose moving beyond what they describe as imposed categories such as male/female and right/wrong.
Specific Activities and Metaphors
The 40-page Queering Outdoor Education guide provides specific activities for classroom implementation. One exercise involves having students remove invasive ivy while teachers highlight that much like native plants, queer people have always been here, drawing parallels between ecological and social concepts.
Other suggested activities include:
- Using cloud observations to discuss gender and sexuality fluidity
- Examining tree diversity to challenge rigid categorization
- Prompting students to question whether nature has rules and if human-imposed rules on nature are fair
The curriculum materials explicitly state that outdoor queerness lessons can begin in kindergarten and set no lower age limit for introducing these concepts to young learners.
Context and Implementation
Jody Polukoshko, the article's author, serves as a Vancouver teacher and past president of the Vancouver Elementary and Adult Educators' Society. The materials were published in November 2025 as part of the BCTF's broader mission to encourage teachers to queer their pedagogy across all subject areas.
The approach represents a significant shift in how British Columbia's natural environment - including species like mule deer, cedar trees, Chinook salmon, and orcas that rely on sexual reproduction involving male and female components - is presented to students in the public education system.
